In the past two decades much has been written about the changesrequired to feed a future world population of 10 billion or more.Having food is only part of the demand; there has been muchless focus on the material needs of such a population. Accom-panying any population growth are the legitimate desires foradequate energy, transportation, housing, schools, health fa-cilities, communication networks, etc. Since World War II, apetroleum-based economy has provided for these needs, butthere is a limit to the reservoirs of petroleum-based hydrocar-bons. Switching to the use of renewable resources wheneverthe appropriate technology is available, is a more sustainableand environmentally responsible approach. Indeed, the conver-sion to a bio-based economy will take time, but there is now amajor effort underway where plant/crop-based renewables areserving as complementary resources to conventional feedstocksto meet the ever-growing needs for chemicals, materials, andother products [4]. Biotechnology is key to the continuedprogress in this area.Plant/crop-based (i.e., bio-based) resources are defined as sourcematerial derived from a range of plant systems, primarily agricul-tural crops, forestry products, and processing streams (includingmicrobial) in the food, feed, and fiber industries. Plant-based in-puts may take several forms including wood, cellulose, lignin,starch, amino acids, proteins, etc., and may be sourced from manydifferent places, e.g., from biomass, crop residue, dedicated crops,and crop processing by-products. The current goal is economicand renewable suites of products from new biorefineries, whichwill include production of primary products and co-products to-gether [4]. The primary bio-based products can include oils, com-modity or specialty chemicals, and materials.The key to building a bio-based industry is to identify 'plat-form chemicals'. These are chemicals that are easily obtainedfrom plant/microbial sources and have excellent properties thatlead to new products. The United States Department of Ener-gy's current Biomass Initiative is providing matching funds tocompanies that have identified and are developing platformchemicals [5]. For example, DuPont has developed a fermenta-tion-based process for 1,3-propanediol. The process starts withcorn as a renewable carbohydrate feedstock and using a bio-catalyst converts the carbohydrates to the 1,3-propanediol. The1,3-propanediol is the key ingredient in Sorona, Dupont'snewest advanced polymer platform. In addition to benefits ofsoftness, stretch recovery, vibrant color, and stain resistance,textiles made with Sorona  have the dimension of being a natu-